Introduction
The basic purpose of a catalog is to organize explicit and abstract information, in a standardized format, on a collection of products, services, or information that may be of interest to individuals or groups. Catalogs can be delivered in many forms, such as printed in a paper medium or displayed on a view screen or computer monitor. Catalogs are usually structured lists or itemized displays of titles, course offerings, or articles for exhibition or sale, and often include descriptive information or illustrations relative to the listed items. Catalogs in their more traditional forms include mail order catalogs, retail catalogs, discount catalogs, supplier catalogs, service catalogs, direct mail offerings, bulletins, flyers, posters, etc. Catalogs in their more modern forms are what one would recognize as anything from a single data field of product information up to a several hundred page four color periodical (i.e. a Sears or JC Penney's catalog), or it could be TV or Radio commercial, where the article is presented to the consumer with the relevant key features and buying information, augmented by direct or subliminal lifestyle benefits that could accrue to the buyer.
The advent of the Internet has created new mediums for cataloging digital data, such as Web banners, e-Mail offerings, search engines and directories, e-Brochures, e-Catalogs, and online periodicals. Catalogs can also be thought of as any information service, such as in the media publishing industry, which would include magazines and books whereby a user scans a ‘catalog’ of headlines in order to locate items of interest. Other examples of catalogs could include entertainment products such as movies, television shows, documentaries, music, radio programs, to name a few. These observations are consistent with the broad purpose of a catalog, which is to organize key data about an aggregation of products, services or information in a structured manner to help facilitate users' commerce transactions or information acquisition needs.
Catalogs
Many people use or review a catalog of some form on a daily basis. The human mind is constantly cataloging, often subliminally. Many make little more than a mental note of items they would like to purchase or recall at a future date. Others keep hand written records, clippings, copies, etc. that often are misplaced or discarded. Long before the Internet, catalogs were the remote-shopping option of choice.
Through the Internet, the catalog has been transformed from a largely printed medium to a digital one, allowing a user to access the cataloged information anytime and from anywhere they may have an Internet connection. The Internet is enabling more efficient product and service cataloging, and personalized commercial transactions by providing a means to orchestrate the interaction between the vendor or provider and the customer; which significantly reduces the time and effort required for making selections and purchases as compared to a conventional retail store environment. This electronic publishing combined with the speed of the Internet has contributed to an acceleration of decision making processes, sometimes placing additional stresses on the industry supply chain as consumer buying dynamics change with more rapidity and unpredictability.
The exponential rise of the Internet has also compounded the problem inherent in any mass media marketing because it has increased the consumers' exposure to unsolicited advertising accordingly. This is an example of how automating a process can rapidly overwhelm an individual's capacity or inclination to absorb the information, which could be a significant contributing factor in the higher consumer resistance evident in the slower-than-predicted adoption of e-Commerce services. Consumer resistance tends to increase as the frequency and amount of unsolicited information is directed towards them; paper junk mail has evolved into electronic junk mail, clogging the e-mail in-boxes of Internet users' globally and raising privacy concerns as email lists are sold to direct marketing agencies and distributed widely to any organization willing to pay for these lists.
What is needed is a restructuring of traditional marketing models that have defined the relationship between the consumer and vendor since the beginnings of modem commerce. This method is static and blind in nature because the interaction between the seller and buyer is based on assumptions derived indirectly from statistical market research, sellers make regarding the desires of the buyer. The relationship is also an adversarial one, whereby marketing companies target and collect information on individuals, and then resell this personal information to any organization willing to pay for it. The buyer is then repeatedly targeted by an array of vendors in an effort to gamer their business. With the advent of the Internet, these efforts have reached clandestine proportions, with surveillance ‘bug’ programs being widely planted on user computers just from visiting Web sites, that report back information on Web activity, file activity, and are even capable of eavesdropping through the microphone or attached video camera. As Internet users become more aware of the extent to which they are losing their fundamental privacy rights, there will be increased litigation and organized public awareness campaigns against vendors that conduct these practices.
There is also no direct connection between the publishing of information, such as on the Web, and a potential customer acquiring a copy of that information. Information is broadcast on e-mail lists, advertising, and direct mail in the assumption that a small percentage of the recipients will be interested enough in the item to respond. An opportunity exists with this invention to transform the current relationships in this regard to a more ‘synchronous’ one, whereby vendors or advertisers can have more “linkage,” on a one-to-one basis, with a group of potential or existing customers.
Presently, digital publishing can be achieved through Web sites and e-mails. E-Commerce, though in its adolescence, is now on the verge of outgrowing catalog sales. Many catalog retailers have experienced remarkable success online—in some cases surpassing the “dot-com pure-plays” and the brick-and-mortar retailers that have since moved to the Internet.
Computer technology has dramatically expanded cataloging. Online catalogs play a vital part in e-Commerce. A significant percentage of retail sales can be attributed to consumer contact through catalogs. However, existing catalog information irrespective of the format, whether printed or digital, is not being exploited or harnessed to its maximum potential. Catalogs represent a large amount of free floating information that, if properly captured and utilized, could be the key to providing smarter and more flexible transactions between vendors and consumers.
The catalog is now employed as a listing of products that can then be purchased on the Internet or by traveling to a nearby retail outlet. After significant lead-time, each printed catalog, typically received by conventional postal mail, quickly outlives its usefulness, and is stacked one on top of the other in a discarded pile. These discarded catalogs, even when recycled, represent a significant waste of production resources and incur ever-growing disposal costs.
The relatively new Web catalog format has begun to address this waste problem, but has created a new one in its place. The vast amount of information available on the Web overloads the consumer with information, reflecting the inherent problem of information broadcasting. There are still several obstacles that prevent the user from effectively and efficiently utilizing the large archive of readily available information on the Web. An effective catalog must be limited to specific and pertinent information about a product or service that fits the profile or interest of the user, then it must be delivered to that specific, targeted consumer. This type of personalized interaction must not only be simple; it must be “meaningful” in the sense that the catalog must be personalized to suit the needs of the user in order to be effective. A critically important issue is not only whether the listed information is in a catalog format, but how it is determined that it should be there and how it is used or not used through a Web service, as denoted with a “preference factor.”
Print advertisements are expensive to produce. The retailer or vendor must invest in design, production, publishing and distribution costs to provide the consumer with the delivered information presented through catalogs, brochures, magazines, flyers, billboards, to name a few. All of these costs, including shipping, must be passed on to the consumer. Because of these significant costs, catalogs represent a gamble for manufacturers and distributors—they may or may not recoup the costs through increased sales and profits.
Efficient and effective interaction with catalog content is crucial for all vendors engaged in Internet commerce. Vital product and business information is conventionally represented in the form of a “virtual” catalog, often defined as a simulation, or without physical boundaries and constraints. The virtual catalog plays a vital role in prevailing e-Commerce business models, which include “Web storefronts,” with one supplier accessed by many buyers; “e-Procurement,” in which one buyer delivers to many suppliers; and “e-Markets,” where many buyers interact with many suppliers.
Catalog Management
Despite its mission critical nature, e-Catalog management has been the least emphasized and overlooked area of innovative development with respect to the Internet. There is a need for a universal, global, standardized, interactive cataloging system of providing a customer with personalized product information from any participating Vendor, all in one place, while completely protecting the anonymity of the customer as they utilize this resource. Digital convergence is another factor. The present invention can utilize any device that can interface with the Internet. It is not only applicable for use from a personal computer. Additionally, there is a need for a catalog content management system that effectively places the recipient of the content in the “driver's seat,” whereby they choose information at their discretion, rather than be flooded with information against their will. Such a system would enable the vendor to simply make available the data required to “instantly” catalog any product, service or information for selective storage, personalization, enhancement, and peer sharing, while maintaining “on-the-fly” dynamic content management and anonymity.
There are currently three catalog content management approaches: buyer/e-Market managed, supplier managed, and third-party managed. In the early phase of e-Commerce, the “buyer-managed content model” (also called “content aggregation”) predominated. This model was characterized by the need to fully or partially replicate product information from multiple suppliers into a single “master” catalog.
“Supplier-managed” content management is a distributed model, relying on a direct connection to catalog content on the suppliers' networks. This model has been supported through Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), an industry standard implementation that enables buyers to remotely access the necessary product, pricing and other information directly from the suppliers' Web storefronts. The advantage of the Supplier-managed model is that it gives suppliers maximum control over data presentation, but it is not flexible enough for customers to allow price or feature comparisons across catalogs. The difficulty of this model is compounded by the fact that in order to be effective, the catalog content must be updateable in “real-time” and transaction-enabled, which is most often not within the scope of suppliers to deliver.
The “third-party managed catalog” content is not yet widely used, but it is expected to steadily grow in acceptance as the Internet diversifies and specializes.
Most vendors underestimate the importance of catalog content and its relationship to timeliness of information. However, “third-party managed catalog content” is becoming the standard by which all e-Commerce initiatives will be measured. E-Commerce initiatives that do not develop strategies to effectively manage and maintain catalog content over time will likely suffer a low level of user acceptance, resulting in lost sales for suppliers, ineffective and costly purchasing decisions for buyers, and reduced traffic for e-Marketplaces. An alternate content management solution is required (a combination of the three catalog models described above is needed, a single/master/global repository, direct multi-vendor control, and anonymously facilitated by a third-party for delivery and management). The dynamic capturing and analysis of transactional information that cannot be processed and transferred instantaneously and simultaneously to every participant in the supply or service chain will significantly and negatively impact enterprise resource planning and day-to-day management.
This trend of third-party content aggregation services for cataloging is being increasing adopted by e-Procurement communities and e-Markets, because the complexities of content-management can be outsourced to technology specialists. The third-party services allow suppliers to publish their catalogs once for multiple distribution scenarios, operating in a similar manner to a “buyer-managed” model with catalogs being developed for specific industry or product segments.
Existing models, however, do not provide the interactive and intelligent filtering of profiles for enhancement and interoperability, as well as, the protection of anonymity that is needed for confident consumer use of the Internet for commercial transactions.
Most catalog descriptions consist of the common attributes of the product, material or service. This is adequate for speed searching, but it far from guarantees a match. Typically, product differentiation is severely limited, therefore the supplier cannot show why its product is the right fit or the best buy. Additionally, catalog data is often homogenized into the database to fit a limited format. A highly dynamic, personalized and user-driven cataloging system is needed that showcases the vendor's products and efficiently highlights features and options in response to the user's profiles and lifestyle activities. This leads to another need, whereby once the catalog is acquired and held by the user, it represents a channel between the user and the vendor, providing the foundations for a new, collaborative relationship that can evolve over time. It also needs to allow for comparison of one vendor's product to that of a competing vendor's product irrespective of the geographic location of the vendor. A system that can enhance and augment cross-vendor catalogs irrespective of existing or pre-defined vendor relationships by way of Web services is also needed.
Information Extraction
Conventional search engines in and of themselves are not powerful nor advanced enough to effectively search out scattered disparate information across a worldwide landscape of Web servers. One technology that is coming of age with respect to online catalog management is information extraction (IE) technology. IE is automating e-Catalog management by aggregating dissimilar information using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. It is a key ingredient and part of any successful e-Catalog management system. Simply put, IE assists by extracting information from documents in heterogeneous formats (PDF files, email messages, Web pages, etc.) and converts it to a single homogeneous form. It accomplishes this by examining the hidden structure of text. There are two predominant approaches, the natural language process (NLP) and the wrapper induction. Both determine relevant content and pull it from documents and text through various linguistic algorithms, and document structures and patterns. IE technology is an important tool for populating databases. Online catalogs or e-Catalogs rely on exploiting customer-centric databases to maintain timely information. More and more Web sites are adopting IE technology to enhance the quality and scope of their search tools. Two search methods that are greatly aided by IE are natural language and parametric. The goal of e-Catalog construction is to provide a unified view of information from multiple data stores dynamically. IE technologies are contributing to this by producing a new class of catalog-management tools that access and aggregate information through intelligent mining, extraction and classification of disparate product information. Highly scalable automated solutions that classify and extract information will substantially assist the building and maintaining of e-Catalog productivity across multiple vendor data stores.
Expert Cataloging
An expert system for searching out data should be seen as the first step toward unlocking and exploring additional information. Personalization, lifestyle enhancement, and mobility are key components that could benefit from an expert catalog profile repository. An Internet-based intelligent cataloging system that can provide such expert assistance in the presentation and use of catalog content to a user would be very desirable. Catalog networking can be facilitated through multiple locations and mediums, such as ITV, Internet, print and brick-and-mortar retail outlets. It would also be desirable to easily and efficiently share selectively-cataloged information with peers (a.k.a. viral marketing), resulting in a higher “saturation” rate than conventional e-mail and other Internet enabled technologies.
However, an integrated, Internet-based application that provides anonymous personalized cataloging in real-time is not currently available. First, the vendor or supplier must rely on intrusive and often inaccurate user tracking methods to obtain information on individual user activities and preferences, ranging from Web site session monitoring and vendor forecasting to bias marketing surveys and focus groups. And, the vendor (i.e. retailer, distributor or manufacturer, etc.) must expend inordinate amounts of time and money performing market research and statistical sampling, which is known to be inaccurate. Secondly, the threat to the privacy of individuals on the Internet is a legitimate one, especially with the ever-increasing competition for the attention and patronage of the Internet consumer. This invasion of privacy has been widely documented by industry experts, stating that it is a substantial threat to the future growth of e-Commerce. Vendors of consumer goods believe they must know and maintain personally identifiable demographic data specific to each of their consumers, who may be accessing their site so that they can customize their site to the needs of that individual. Most commercial transactions also require specific and personal information to fulfill the consumer's request, raising the need for greater consumer control over the use and dissemination of their personal information.
Information Publishing
The Internet has revolutionized the publishing world by allowing consumers to access newspapers, magazines, and television through their home PC. Although paper-based publications and broadcast media are still prevalent, increasingly the consumer is adopting the online model for accessing these channels. Delivering information via the Internet represents a significant leap in efficiency over more conventional distribution methods.
However, online information is not consistently or effectively packaged, resulting in an almost infinite array of information formats and taxonomies. What is needed is a consistent, convenient method for users to find and acquire the information they want, when, how and where they want it.
Database Management Systems and Data Mining
Many static database management systems (DBMS) are being used by manufacturers, retailers and service providers to identify potential purchasers of their products and or services. A key DBMS feature is its ability to manage these relationships. These same DBMS services use traditional sources to obtain prospective client information (including name, address, age, employment, income levels, home ownership, gender and race). Then a market research survey is performed to focus on learning what those prospective consumers might buy; this data is then forwarded to the appropriate vendors who subscribe to the DBMS information systems.
Traditionally, even with the use of the sciences of statistical analysis and psychographics, supported by the collected demographics, and refined by geographical/regional influences, have a built-in margin of error of 3% to 7% either side of the focus question. The reason for this margin of error is due to the unpredictability of what the consumer will actually do when making a purchasing decision.
List management, list brokerages, and special interest marketing services are choice locations for marketers interested in a specific interest group. These presently static databases are typically updated on a regular basis, such as monthly or bimonthly. They are assembled through a variety of means, and organized for statistical presentation of households or individuals as polled in relation to magazines, reader services, and sweeps information, for example. These statistics are primarily used for circulation, enhanced list rental, database mining and advertiser programs. They are often referenced against InfoBase™. Acxiom Corp. (www.axicom.com) is an international provider of comprehensive information management solutions using customer, consumer and business data. InfoBase is believed to offer the most accurate and comprehensive consumer, business and contact data available. It obtains its data from lists composed of change of address, U.S. Census, driver's license, and credit application stats. CircBase™ is a publishing cooperative database comprised many publications sharing their subscription purchase data. Under this model, no one can be aware of which publication the data is associated with, only that the requesters are magazine readers. All of these organizations rely on historical demographical information; and, latent, or post-transaction consumer data.
There are a number of problems plaguing market research systems and services. Estimating the ROI for these types of businesses can be very challenging and an approximate at best. There is no real-time relationship with the consumer/end-user. Privacy issues are neither fully enforceable nor controllable under current database architectures. The data is often not trustworthy; it must be tested routinely for duplicate records and inaccuracies. Latency is another problem that compounds the current models; the transactional information is almost always untimely, since it is provided days, weeks or even months after the consumer's activities were completed. A method of delivering highly accurate pre-transaction intentions as well as real-time transaction analytics through a user-driven utility is needed.
A radical departure from the current model is needed. The ideal system would no longer require the cumbersome task of managing names, addresses, and personal contact information. This would greatly reduce duplicate data issues, unsolicited direct mailings, and flagrant privacy breaches. Today, customer information is driving product and marketing decisions in unprecedented ways. The vendor can no longer assume to know what their consumers want. The consumer must be asked, without violating their privacy.
Network Environments
A key to this new model is the increasing use of “secured” networks. A secure network is a private network that employs standard Internet protocols and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other select businesses. A secured network (Extranet) may be viewed as part of a company's Intranet, or internal network that is extended to users outside the company over the public Internet. It has also been described as a “state of mind,” in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business simultaneously with other companies (B2B) as well as creating the medium to sell products to consumers.
A secure network can facilitate privacy for all participants. Currently, these types of networks rely upon firewall server management, security transport protocols, the issuance and use of digital certificates/IDs or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of virtual private network (VPN) technology to securely connect participants through the public Internet. A secured network is needed that intrinsically provides a protected and controllable environment for Users and Vendors, while accelerating business transactions, minimizing the possibility of fraudulent activities and business abuses; and, most significantly, keeping users' identities anonymous.
Web Services
“Web services” are interoperable Web-based software services that can be subscribed to by Users, either on a payment or free-use basis. The interoperability aspect means that, at the direction of a User, one Web service can access another Web service. A Web service may combine several applications or architectures that a user needs, from any platform. For the consumer or end-user, the entire set of services will appear as a single, integrated service.
Currently employed protocols to which Web Services are especially suited include UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), XML (Extensible Markup Language), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and WSDL (Web services description language). An important benefit of these standards is that client applications based on one vendor's software will be able to communicate with Web services even if they are based on differing software from another vendor. More recently, application service providers (ASP), organizations that host software applications on its own servers within its own facilities, are expanding their services to non-commercial users with browser-based PCs across the Internet. Customers rent the use of the application and access it over the Internet or via a private line connection. Although hosted applications are basically a parallel strategy to Web services, the mere hosting of an application does not encompass the potential for Web services. It is predicted that Web services will eventually become seamlessly interoperable with one another, and soon all leading e-Business platforms will support at least the basic Web services infrastructure.
A leading example of a Web-based development platform is .Net™ from Microsoft®. This technology includes tools to develop and deploy Web-based applications that can be accessed from anywhere, including browsers, handheld devices and smart phones. .NET provides a complete development infrastructure that enables programming languages to be compiled into a Common Intermediate Language (CIL) that is executed on-the-fly, or compiled into machine language by the Common Language Runtime (CLR) software in the target computer. This is similar to Java's intermediate “bytecode,” except that Java is one programming language, whereas Microsoft is allowing all programming languages to be compiled into the intermediate code. .NET applications can run on Intranets as well as public Web sites, thus .NET is an all-inclusive software platform for both internal and external use. Microsoft browsers and upcoming versions of Windows are expected to include .NET code, which will take greater advantage of .NET-based applications. Microsoft has enhanced its programming languages to support the .NET platform, in such products as Visual Studio.NET. It has also introduced the .NET-enabled C Sharp (C#) programming language. .NET also supports existing Windows components, such as .DLLs and .COM objects.
Fortunately, a number of technology initiatives are under way to create an infrastructure for linking Web services. At the forefront of this effort are technologies such as XML, UDDI, and SOAP. These still-emerging technologies and standards are being packaged into competing suites of services and tools from Microsoft® on the one hand, and from companies such as Sun® Microsystems, IBM®, BEA®, Oracle®, and Hewlett-Packard® that support Java™ on the other.
Intelligent Agents
Users want personalized interactivity, not just mass-market e-Commerce. Users also want to interact with data more intelligently as it relates to their specific needs. Personalized data is information that is specifically tailored for the User such as their attribute and lifestyle preferences, which can be represented in a “profile.”
To further aid the personalization of online data, expert assistants or “intelligent agents” can be employed. “Intelligent Agent” (IA) is a term applied to a general category of software entities that act on behalf of a user or another program to achieve preset objectives. The entity must have a certain degree of autonomy in order to be classified as an IA. Further, the IA must have the ability to perform tasks without the need for constant human instruction or interaction.
As new technology just coming of age, IAs may offer hope for the fulfillment of many wishes. For instance, those who utilize personal assistants or secretaries often seek an individual who understands their needs and preferences, and can be conditioned to think the way they do. Just as with a human friend or associate, over time the IA assistant would gradually acquire the patterns and practices of the individual served. Once taught, it could function on its own with an occasional “check-in” with the trainer or owner of the IA for unclear or new situations.
From the idea that patterns of behavior can be identified and described, it follows that if these patterns can be described, they can be learned. If one can describe how to recognize a certain kind of pattern, then a goal of an IA program is to recognize the pattern after a few occurrences, hopefully with the aid of users to help automate the patterns. The IA is therefore potentially a tool for analyzing systems and data stores. Essentially, an IA is a system situated within an environment that senses its own activities and acts upon them, in pursuit of its own pre-set yet potentially evolving agenda.
All existing software IAs are programs, but not all programs are IAs. On the Internet, an IA is typically a program that regularly gathers information or performs some other service without a user's immediate presence. Conventionally, an IA program uses parameters provided by the user in a search of all or some part of the Internet, gathers information of interest to the user, and presents it to the user on a regular basis. Other IAs have been developed that personalize information on a Web site based on registration information and usage analysis.
Any IA program must have a degree of autonomy in order to be classified as an Intelligent Agent. This enables the program to act without constant human intervention. This means the IA has control over its own actions and internal state, enabling itself to perform tasks without the need for constant instruction, which is typically given by a user. IAs must act in such a way to achieve their goals through communicating with other agents, systems or people, and automatically applying specialized logic to situations encountered.
IAs are already being integrated into many typical computer programming applications. There is a large market for such agents, especially when looking toward the future, because people are always seeking more ways to work more efficiently. As these types of IA software entities are further embedded into fundamental applications, marketers and certain types of businesses must consider IA alternatives to improve their business practices in order to succeed and survive in the increasingly competitive Information Age business landscape.
Several technologies can be used in the design of IAs. These technologies include statistical operations, artificial intelligence, machine learning, inference, neural networks, and information technologies. IAs can learn over time, and rapidly improve in their performance as they adapt to the user's needs. Although some expert agents are currently available, they are too simplistic, unrealistic, misapplied, ineffective without excessive user oversight and monitoring and unprotected from threats to privacy.
IAs are now common elements of many new software tools that are a blend of existing technologies, essentially converging on a more unified or common operational framework. However, the term “convergence” involves more than just grouping multiple technologies together. True convergence is achieved when multiple technologies are blended into a single new product with forethought on how the technologies interact. Converged technology must showcase a new and improved package that is more efficient, streamlined, powerful and easier to use; essentially, “greater than” the sum of its component parts. Most importantly, users must actually have a need for the product or service that the converged technology provides.
Supply Chain Relationships
The supply chain is every sequential step or process that brings the product or service from its most basic form, or most raw material, to finished or consumer packaged goods (CPG) ready for market. According to the Ernst & Young, the basic Supply Chain Process consists of five functions; plan, buy, make, move, and sell, with suppliers at one end, and customers at the other. The participants in the supply chain typically include the raw material extractor or producer, the material transporter, the manufacturer, marketers, distributors, retailers, advertisers, transporters, financiers or bankers, the government and the consumer. A current trend for e-Commerce is to reduce overhead by minimizing contact with the “middleman” such as the retailer, wholesaler or marketer, striving to make this contact instantaneously and simultaneously. E-Commerce is facilitating this new business model that more efficiently bridges, or shortens, the inherent distance between the consumer, and the seller, who may be a manufacturer or producer. The reason it has not been very well received in both the business and consumer sectors is that it still performs sequentially.
In addition to the chained relationship arrangement, retailers, manufacturers, and their supply chain members need access to transactional information as rapidly as possible to utilize their limited resources to the most efficient levels. Every product or service can be broken down to its most basic structure or component attributes, and information related to fulfilling any of those parts can be made available to any supply chain participant, instantly once the need is known.
Even with the Web's technology, and its ability to network information, it does not solve “real-time” information flow dilemmas. Currently, the process of production requires that information flow up and down the supply chain in sequential steps. The terms “just-in-time” and “real-time” presently imply that every affected part of the supply chain knows simultaneously what is happening above and below them. This is simply not true. Information conventionally flows in a sequential stream and only when the information providers decide to forward it, or are requested to do so. “Latency of information flows” are delays that are increased or decreased by the speed of which sequential decisions and or requests are made. This time and process delay affects production, inventory, and financial decisions of the supply chain participants; and wastes significant amounts of resources, unnecessarily.
An intelligent supply chain model presumes all participants involved in the process are both customers and suppliers. The intelligent model relies on shared knowledge and it applies quality initiatives and technology to the supply chain process. Dynamic data exchanges of product attributes, prices, and availability must become instantaneous. For real-time supply chain status processing, pro-active information systems must be integrated across the supply chain—including the end customer for whom it ultimately serves.
Trade Shows, Exhibitions and Expos
Industry leaders in the publishing field are using the Internet combined with venues like tradeshows to accurately move information simultaneously to interested parties while lowering their advertising costs. The anonymous nature of the data transfer benefits the vendor for tracking trends, consumer desires, etc. The permission-based information collected via this method is used to connect the vendor or publisher to individual consumers as a target audience. Nevertheless, everyone else in the supply chain is ignored; or may receive their information in some sequential interval of time.
Trade show and exposition organizers are increasingly challenged to justify to exhibitors their “return on investment” (ROI). Across nearly every industry, exhibitors are buying more space and show organizers are bringing in more revenue, while net paid square feet and total gross revenue continues to climb at double-digit rates. However, there are signs the expo industry may be slowing with respect to attendees. One possible reason for the decreasing number of attendees could be attributed to an overall dissatisfaction of the process, as it currently exists. Breakthroughs in technology, including computer registration, smart cards, magnetic stripe badges, Softstripe badges, and Web-based lead generation applications, have drastically changed the way tradeshow organizers manage events. New advancements such as these have made it possible for organizers to address the needs of both exhibitors and attendees more efficiently. Despite all of these improvements, a more efficient and effective way to acquire, store, exchange product interests and catalog exhibitor information is still needed.
Enhanced TV and Set-Top Devices
Enhanced TV is a technology that allows a consumer to receive both television broadcasts and Internet access across the same screen at once. It was originally introduced by NCI (now called Liberate Technologies) in 1997. Consumers need a more personal and convenient system for interacting with television content. To meet this need, an intelligent television response system is required that somehow tracks and facilitates consumers' interests, without revealing the viewer's identity or privacy. Consumer advocacy groups are warning that TV viewers will soon be subject to the same threats that are being faced by Internet users with respect to their privacy. The ITV industry is creating a new TV infrastructure designed to capture tremendous amounts of personal information about ITV subscribers that will be used for variety of marketing purposes. The current methods for filtering and tracking consumer interaction are not sufficient to address the growing demands of personalization and privacy safeguards. Set-top manufacturers are also being asked to address these concerns by integrating privacy technology into their products. The consumer's demands will need to be addressed in a way that gives the personalized convenience they need, while providing network operators, broadcasters, and sponsors with the required tracking of information in “real-time,” while yet maintaining the privacy, anonymity and security of the viewer/subscriber.
TV Advertising and Technology
With the advent of personal video recorders (PVR), the advertising industry and all those who generate revenue through selling TV advertising slots have seriously begun reassessing better ways to reach their targeted audiences and protect their interests. PVR technology allows viewers to zap commercials, making TV content free, for all intents and purposes. With revenue streams being undercut and advertising rates going down, an alternative method of advertising through TV is required. Networks believe the PVR model will assist their efforts because the ads they do sell can be better targeted. The notion is that viewers will be less inclined to avoid commercials if they feature products that interest them. There are several new technologies arising that propose to build and capture individual viewer profiles for just this purpose. It is going to be a legal as well as a technical challenge for content providers to avoid the looming privacy issues that relate to the processing and storing of personally identifiable information of millions of viewers. Just as with Web advertising, TV advertisers may find themselves paying for “eyeballs.” A more convenient and cost effect system of targeting individuals through ITV is needed. More particularly, it must avoid privacy pitfalls and efficiency restraints while serving all participants equitably. It must also introduce a new format and platform for advertisers.
Marketing
Manufacturers and service providers attempt to analyze consumers' needs, wants, desires, and trends through an expensive process called statistical “market research.” This research includes statistical sampling and trends analysis in various regions of the national and international marketplaces. Also, manufacturers and producers are required to develop multiple styles, types and variations of a single product to ensure they reach the broadest number of consumers. This means that there are numerous product variations manufactured on either side of the bell curve, which are not consumed or bought. This wastes inordinate amounts of scarce raw materials, energy sources, labor efforts, and financial capacities for the manufacturer and its “supply chain.” Accurate data that could be provided in a “real-time” and “synchronous” environment would narrow the bell curve base. Furthermore, the information relating to the production process does not allow for information to be instantly and simultaneously exchanged between the user, the manufacturer, and the other members of the supply chain.
Database marketing in the publishing field is still in its infancy. Editorial and advertising departments lack the understanding and skill set to properly explore the value of digital marketing data (not convenient). Many smaller companies must partner with a particular advertiser on a cooperative database. Designing and running a marketing database is a significant task, and most internal systems are not built to handle complex marketing analysis. Therefore, a company needs to enlist a dedicated database-marketing vendor and make it a partner in the process. Currently, a typical corporation uses dozens of databases to drive customer and vendor information. The next step is to centralize the process into a primary corporate marketing database, which isn't easy with existing systems. For example, a fulfillment database is primarily used to capture subscriber information, which then drives the delivery of an issue or drives the process of billing and then renewing that subscribing customer. There are elements in that process that do not easily incorporate into the current marketing database environment. A name is in play in so many places in the list market, and names are duplicated in many lists. The more places the name is found, the less likely it is to get valuable marketing information back about how the name was used.
Market Examples
In the present “Digital Age,” turning business data into useful asset is a critical component for any organization to be successful. Several technologies and services are presently available to help the consumer capture and manage data for commercial purposes. The following technologies exemplify market examples that provide traditional client/server networking models to automate and enhance consumer services: Barpoint.com provides information gathering and e-Commerce through barcode identification. Quecat.com also provides information gathering and e-Commerce through a proprietary code scanning technology. Qode.com is a UPC indexed product database available to the general public where users can opt to remain anonymous if they so choose. Highpoint.com provides “in-store” e-Commerce technology via a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a consumer, hand held scanner. Edgegain.com provides comparison-shopping via the user's Web-browser based toolbar. ClickTheButton.com includes comparison-shopping on a client-side application running with the user's Web-browser. At GizmozNetworks.com, a rich, media merchant messaging system is provided that operates through e-mail and client-side programming. SOSMarketPlace.com provides selection management of products through personal accounts. OTSNet.com is a virtual tradeshow portal of sorts, complete with vendor booths e-Commerce services. Magaseek.com features a wireless application-based store locator and e-Commerce service that operates by a user's entry of the volume/issue, page number(s), and price range, as found within periodicals. StreetBeam.com provides an interactive advertising medium for retrieving and saving valuable information. WideRay.com and adAlive.com like BeamStreet.com offer methods that address contextual marketing through a variety of consumer devices.
Some of these examples simply are a repackaging of old concepts that do little more than offer a new mode of transmission. However, none of these services actually address the life cycle management of information from a consumer-centric perspective adequately. They lack the internal architecture required to assimilate new methodologies affecting the ever-changing landscape of market research, statistical analysis, and commerce both online and offline across multiple channels and devices. They have not factored the importance of allowing the consumer to create personalized catalog profiles over an e-Catalog network. They also do not properly address the information life cycle associated with products and services. The present invention directly sources and links the packaged information to its respective owner or vendor for dynamic updates, targeted promotions, custom services, and facilitation of supportive applications designed to take full advantage of the cataloged content.
The BuyLink.com marketplace is a catalog distribution network that creates connections between retailers and specialty item vendors. The core technology offers a centralized meeting place for retailers, reps, and vendors by way of a “Desktop Catalog” software application for communicating Live Market Data®. Desktop Catalog® software, installed on BuyLink™ retailers' computer desktops, allows them to browse catalogs, order, and communicate without the need to visit any web site. Desktop Catalogs are remotely updated. They are distributed over a P2P network and e-mail. They do not facilitate anonymous cross-profiling of customer-centric catalogs for contextual applications.
MindArrow.com is another example of a current service that does not provide the user with the needed personalization and the efficiency of dynamic catalog management. However it does provide personalized e-brochures (via e-mail) using HTML, video, audio, animation and graphics. A user's response to the e-brochure is then tracked, whether the user “clicks through,” or makes a purchase, or forwards the information on to another user. However, this too falls short of providing users with the needed personalization and privacy as discussed above.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,129, as implemented by Expanse™ Networks, Inc., covers a privacy-protected method and software for targeting advertisements to consumers based on their purchase habits. The technology described in the patent suggests that companies could target broadcast advertisements to introduce new products to brand-loyal customers, or even target their competitors' customers to raise market share. Jovio.com is yet another example of viewer profiling, ad ordering and ad insertion engines, which captures and creates detailed viewer profiles, and then delivers targeted TV commercials. Jovio Inc. makes software that enables any cable or satellite television operator to profile its viewers and deliver highly targeted commercial advertisements to them. However, these technologies simply offer targeted television advertising. A direct method that is intrinsically anonymous is needed for interrelating with the TV viewer/subscriber, while exclusively maintaining the viewers' control to acquire data on products, information and services instantly at their discretion across multiple mediums. At the same time this transactional information is produced, it must be instantly related to the affected participants of the supply chain.
Eye2Buy™ Technology Co. offers a tracking mechanism, to complement the strategy of product placements in movies and television programs, whereby the decision, selection and purchase actions of a viewer from initial interest through to a purchase can be captured. The technology requires special digital encoding applied during the entertainment product's post-production phase. This would allow the viewer to open an overlay window that lists products that are associated with the broadcast or release. The viewer could then explore a link that holds a complete catalog of the item or product line. Then, if desired, a purchase may be made. There is also the ability to tie in additional links such as production-related information, interactivity with fan clubs or official show Web sites. Although this approach offers convenience and flexibility, it does not provide anonymity through a catalog server system nor does it facilitate the delivery of e-Catalog profiles for further enhancement by Web service applications.
Multi-channel marketing, profile analytics, decision support, e-Customer intelligence are just some of the phrases being used to describe a new era in marketing and sales. Such companies as Personify®, Engage®, Coremetric®, and NetGenesis® too name a few are focused on creating solutions that help businesses leverage their customer information assets through a variety of personalized Internet technologies. The present invention solves unaddressed issues of control on the part of the User by providing a co-managed e-Catalog network.